The Match Under the Mistletoe
by Covalent Bond
Summary: To everyone's surprise, Temperance Brennan embraces the spirit of the season in the weeks before Christmas 2006. A Secret Santa story for Spitfire303. Merry Christmas!
1. Angela

**Author's Note:** It's Secret Santa time! Fortunately, Sarahinprint matched me with _Spitfire303_ and I say fortunate because she gave me three amazing prompts. I actually had a hard time deciding. :)

Thank you to Sarahinprint for taking on the responsibility of matching names this year, as well as keeping track of the stories that are posted. In the end, considering that important role the organizer plays in any Secret Santa operation was what led me to choose Spitfire's Secret Santa prompt. I mean that literally, by the way. She literally asked for a Secret Santa in the Lab story featuring Hodgins, Angela and Brennan.

~Q~

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><p><strong>~ The Match Under the Mistletoe ~<strong>

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><p>~Q~<p>

**Angela**

_3 December 2006._

"Hey. Doctor Saroyan said it's okay."

"What's okay." She didn't even bother to look up from the book she was buried in, oh so typical. The Forensic Anthropologist that Angela Montenegro had begun calling 'best friend' would not be easy to reach when something containing letters on leaves of paper was within her grasp, and that was not to mention the topic itself, which Angela hadn't actually mentioned yet. As soon as Temperance Brennan realized what Angela had in mind…?

There would be a _battle royal_.

Wondering how much resistance she'd be facing, Angela pushed further into her best friend's office and offered the opening salvo. "The party, here in the lab."

"Hm. That's good."

_Hm, that's no resistance, which is __**not**__ good. It means she's not paying attention. _Angela halted at the edge of Brennan's desk and leaned down to get more action out of her than a distracted murmur meant to hide an all but obvious oblivion. She put her hand over the page. "You're going to be there, right?"

"What?"

Only because the words were blocked.

Finally Brennan looked up, her eyes hazed in rainy day hues and Angela felt relief to finally hash this out. "You will be at the Christmas party."

"No I won't."

That was quick. (And disappointing, considering all the progress they'd made last year.) It was also completely expected, what she'd come in here prepared to face: absolute resistance to the idea of voluntarily participating in Yuletide festivities. Raising a brow, Angela crossed her arms and the battle was on. "Why not?"

"I'm going to—"

Before she could finish with 'Timbuktu' or the 'Outer Wild Banks of Madagascar' (or whatever other primitive hellhole she had in mind) Angela stomped her foot, stamped the idea right out. "No! I thought we were friends!"

Bafflement made Brennan halt, nothing more. "We are."

"Then you're staying here to help me."

"Angela…."

Imbued with twin pangs of guilt and whatever invented obligation she'd managed to conjure as her excuse to flee the family Christmas tree, Brennan admonished her with a passable effort at pitiful. Really, it looked very authentic. Absolutely that woeful expression was the epitome of 'torn' and 'pensive,' even a little bit of 'conflicted' and all so highly perfected that a lesser expert in all things _awkward anthropologist_ might accuse her of advance preparation.

Steep learning curve and all that….

"Come on, Bren. Where else could you possibly go that would be better than here with me, and Hodgins. Zack. And Booth!"

Angela even thought she detected some additional softening there, right before she risked mentioning the FBI Agent's name. She wasn't sure which way Booth's name was going to send her friend, though. It really was a toss-up these days. (All that sizzling sexual tension but if anyone went so far as to suggest they just jump each other already, that fool would be met with frosty denial that he was anything more than 'her partner.' And Booth wasn't any better, his denials tending towards more frantic and high-pitched than Brennan's, which was rather comical considering he was a manly, sniper-turned-FBI Agent alpha-male. Really. Should such a brave warrior be reduced to quivering panic at the mere mention of him having the hots for his 'partner?' No— Unless it's _true_.)

"Booth will be with Parker."

That was the end of that. Angela crossed her arms. "Fine that still leaves the rest of us."

Instead of arguing, Brennan flipped shut the book she'd been looking through, a travel guide to North Carolina, and lifted her chin resolutely. "I've got plans."

"What, there's a mass grave in North Carolina?"

Rolled eyes. (Now where did she pick that up?) Very adolescent, but then in many way Temperance Brennan's adolescence had been halted at the age of fifteen, lingering in stasis for years until only recently when meeting Booth had triggered a long overdue 'first crush.' Truly, she was a late bloomer.

Angela's amusement turned all soft and mushy, therefore, when Brennan confessed quietly, "I'm going to spend Christmas with my brother, Russ."

Oh. Oh, wow.

This was the brother Brennan had lost sixteen years ago, days after losing both parents at the tender age of fifteen herself, and all of this the reason she had shunned Christmas ever after. After last year's lockdown in the lab on Christmas morning, they'd all gotten closer — Booth included — and even Brennan had grudgingly participated up to a point. The real breakthrough came just a few months later, when Booth had facilitated a long overdue reunion and reconnection with Russ Brennan.

So this news was, without a doubt, the only excuse Angela would ever be willing to accept: trading a 'work' Christmas for a family one. "Oh, that sounds wonderful, Sweetie."

A shy smile ghosted across her lips, rather like she was afraid to be happy. "He invited me and I want to go."

With a satisfied sigh, Angela took a seat and watched her lonely friend adapting to the idea of spending Christmas with family again. "I never even thought of this: of course you'll want to be with him instead of here."

Nodding, tracing an idle fingertip across the cover of her tourist guide, the anthropologist finally admitted, "It still doesn't feel real. I'm going to have Christmas with my brother."

"It's your first Christmas together in sixteen years. But this is _good_. It's really good."

The happy, unguarded smile returned and went all the way to Brennan's eyes this time. It was the rarest of sights, bright enough to seem the personification of Christmas spirit in a person who didn't even believe in that sort of thing.

Who could help feeling misty-eyed? Not this cynical artist. Wiping a genuine teardrop away Angela laughed, realizing she'd been bested by a misty little sister who'd finally found the way home. Brennan won this round but it was a _long_ time coming.

"Okay, I'll stop nagging you to stay and party with us but will you still help me with the Secret Santa?"

"What? No."

_I lost round one, I am not losing round two._ Angela put her foot down again, which meant she had to stand back up. "You won't be here so you're off the hook on participating, but then that makes you the perfect choice."

"For what…."

"To match the names, of course. I trust you'll be completely objective."

"But, I—"

"No look, it's easy. I give you the names, you match us all up and tell us who to get a gift for. That's it."

It was too easy. Oh, the suspicion rolling off Brennan, like fog on the coast. "Why can't you do it?"

"Well, because." A cheeky grin. "I won't be impartial."

Taking a few seconds to consider that admission, Brennan frowned. "You mean as a participant, you have a vested interest in securing the best possible contributor for yourself."

"Well, I wouldn't put it _that_ way." On the other hand, Brennan was not wrong. Angela smirked, knowing her friend's inherent sense of justice would do the rest of the convincing for her.

"It's human nature," the anthropologist shrugged. "Therefore I concede you are wise to seek my input."

"So you'll do it?"

"Yes. I will match the names." And she smiled again, actually looked intrigued by the responsibility. "A spreadsheet would be too simplistic. Perhaps I will design a flow chart…."

~Q~

Surprisingly, that wasn't all that she did.

Angela wandered into the Ookie room two days later to find Temperance Brennan — hater of all things holiday themed — haggling over a sprig of mistletoe. Bickering, mind you, over the most strategic location for placement.

"People should not stop in doorways, it occludes traffic flow."

Jack Hodgins beheld this protest with widely opened eyes, bluer than his lab coat, and a mouth to match. (Not blue, just in case you were wondering, his mouth was only a match in the 'wide open' sense.) He held off from hanging the herb just long enough to clarify. "Well where else would you lay in wait but right where there's no escape? That's _why_ this is the tradition. You hang it over a doorway."

With this indisputable fact dispensed, he stretched out the contentious specimen (freshly culled from several oaks reigning on his estate these last two centuries), preparing to affix it upon the lintel while Brennan furrowed her brow below. "Properly speaking, tradition would have it placed over the front entrance."

And while she was right, this could go on all night.

"You know what? We're going to put mistletoe over _all_ the doorways," Angela drawled. "And one or two on the platform."

So what if the ceiling was 30 feet high out there, Angela was determined to end certain charades and what better way than mathematical leveraging. The more chances for mistletoe mayhem, the better: get the numbers stacked and eventually something was bound to happen. Though she would never admit it, Brennan would welcome any excuse to lock lips with Seeley Booth and Angela was only too happy to provide it. _Consider this my Super Secret Santa gift to you, my sweet unsuspecting friend._ Gathering up swags of holly garlands for trimming, she winked at Jack and brushed past her bemused best friend. Brennan, for her part, swung a semi-circle to face outwards towards her own threatened territory.

"Why?"

"Because that's where you spend most of your time." And where one Seeley Booth might hopefully seize opportunity and _would_, even if Angela had to drag him there by the hair. Hopefully Cam wouldn't catch on until it was too late to stop fate. (That 'friends-with-benefits' thing they had going was another of the charades Angela intended to halt this Christmas.)

Laughing, Jack finished tacking Cupid's favorite herb above the entrance to his Ookiedom. "If you want to avoid getting caught, you'll have to keep moving."

Her arms fell into an embrace crossing her ribs, a veritable bumper meant to ward off collisions and kissing coworkers alike. "Easily accomplished, as I won't be here."

"Won't be where?" Booth breezed in at just that moment, pausing when he spied Hodgins hard at work setting traps for the unwary. "And what's this about keeping moving — are you going somewhere?"

"I won't be at the Christmas party." Brennan's arms dropped rather quickly, Angela noted, even as she sidled a little bit further away from the ladder where her coworker had firmly attached his first lure. As Jack came down the ladder and set it aside, oblivious Booth was clearly preparing to change his partner's mind. Neither one of them paid the slightest bit of attention to the mistletoe dangling above them.

(One might think these two were blind as bats but in fact, they had eyes only for each other and that made them blind to everything else.)

"Why not? If Cam is making me go, then you have to go, too."

That threw her. Upon learning that Booth would attend the party she was sworn to miss, Brennan's breath snagged on a syllable that sounded suspiciously like a startled ejaculation. And then disappointment. "Wha-? Well, uh, I've already purchased tickets."

"To go _where_? Come on, I thought we got you over the Grinch phase last year. Even Scrooge turned up at the company party, you know." His most tempting grin softened the tease considerably, but not the sting buried within. His implication that she was a Grinch, even if she still didn't know what that was, stiffened Brennan's resistance.

"Only after being terrorized by a nightmare phantom. Are you suggesting I must attend pro-forma holiday celebrations as a prophylactic against my own ignominious death?"

"Bones, real people don't use words like 'ignominious.' I don't even know what that means."

"It means shameful or having a bad name."

"Then why didn't you just say that?"

Laughing, Brennan leaned in closer. Close enough to kiss him, mere centimeters apart. "Efficiency. Why use six words when one will do?"

"One word is useless when no one knows what you're talking about."

Ignoring the bickering proceeding beside him, Jack Hodgins beckoned to Angela. "Come hither, my darling."

Smirking, she sauntered closer, eyeing the herb with genuine affection. So many great kisses, so many happy excuses to kiss the daylights out of whatever man or woman caught her fancy. Angela loved Christmas, unapologetically, and she loved Jack Hodgins all the more for being on her side in this caper. "Are we taking it for a test run?"

"I figure somebody ought to, since _these two are wasting a perfectly good opportunity_." Hodgie's brows waggled, a saucy wink crinkling his eyes all that much deeper when his dig and none-too-subtle usurpation of their position below the mistletoe caused the partners to stop sparring and turn their gazes upwards in tandem.

Angela noted Brennan's cheeks washing pink just before she happily wrapped herself around her favorite entomologist, their mouths melding under the mistletoe.

Booth whistled.

Brennan (probably) rolled her eyes.

Camille Saroyan halted her exit from the autopsy bay and groaned. "Oh good grief, do I have to banish mistletoe from the Jeffersonian?"

Breaking loose, Angela laughed. "What, it's just a harmless kiss under the mistletoe. Doesn't mean a thing, right Bren?"

"Well anthropologically speaking—"

"Oh no you don't," Booth interrupted, grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her off towards her own office. "Don't you dare ruin mistletoe with one of your anthropology speeches."

"But in England they held the belief that a man and woman who kissed more than once beneath mistletoe were destined to get married. And the Druids…."

"Hear that, Hodgie? Brennan says we're getting married."

"At the rate we're going, probably more than once."

She snickered, stole another three kisses, then sighed as she considered the novel idea of attaching herself to one person forever.

"So…" Jack smoothed her hair and held her eyes with that shade of adoring blue she would never tire seeing. "Did Doctor B give you your Secret Santa yet?"

"Yeah," Angela chuckled. "She gave me, um … Zack."

"Really. Hmm, that ought to be interesting."

"Who did you get?"

"Um, well…."

He looked so reluctant that she guessed right away. "Did you get Cam? You did, didn't you. Maybe Bren will let you switch, if you want."

"No, not Cam. She matched me with the perfect Secret Santa." He soothed her so hastily that Angela was now more than a little suspicious. She arched a brow, a silent challenge. "I got it covered, don't worry. Heh, Brennan actually seems excited about this Christmas party."

"Well, she's not gonna be here," Angela reminded.

"Yeah I know, but I kind of wish she was, you know?" He shrugged, thinking back to the twelve, terrifying hours he'd spent trapped underground with the smartest, most caring co-sufferer he could have hoped to have. "In that car I saw a side of her…."

"Hey, look, you're both fine. Let's not think about that anymore, okay?"

"It's just … I think she's in love with Booth."

Every female within a certain radius was a little in love with Booth, meaning Temperance Brennan — who spent all of her time within his sphere — would be more in love than most. Though part of her was tempted to laugh heartily at the obvious, the rest of Angela sighed. Yes, Brennan was in love Booth; the only question was which partner would be the last to figure it out. "Booth is with Cam and he seems to like it that way."

"So then why are you plotting to cover the ceiling in mistletoe…?"

"A girl can hope."

~Q~

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Dearest _Spitfire303_, you asked for one final element which is snow. This was meant to be a story in two parts, with the second part featuring the actual gift exchange and snow. However, as I began writing part two it took on a very unexpected form that included something you did _not_ want. (This time of year brings it out in me, I'm afraid.) The solution, therefore, was to break this story into three parts. Part one has nearly everything you wished for aside from snow. Part two has snow and something you didn't want, however ... there's a reason for it. Part three will hopefully make you forgive part two by offering a warm, fuzzy ending where everyone's Secret Santa delivers the perfect present at the perfect time.

Meanwhile... Happy Christmas!


	2. Brennan

**Author's Note:** Happy New Year! Thanks to all of you wonderful readers who have returned for chapter two.

~Q~

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><p><strong>~ The Match Under the Mistletoe ~<strong>

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><p>~Q~<p>

**Brennan**

_15 December 2006_

What a difference ten days can make.

Temperance Brennan felt an aching sensation holding her cheeks aloft, muscles straining at the force of a forged smile being held too long. All around the Diner, glitzy tinsel streams of red and green slithered under and over photos on the wall in a Christmas-conscripted crenelated 'Greek Key' design. Little snowmen peppering every table, god-awful Christmas carols being sung by Bing Crosby, twinkling fairy lights circling the windows. And a blinking Christmas tree sagging in the back corner (complete with dented 'gifts' that were empty).

Empty. Hollow.

A question drew her attention away from the false promises under the tree, briefly.

"When are you going back to Minnesota?"

Angela was asking Zack about his Christmas plans, and the newly minted Doctor Addy answered with his usual deadpan demeanor. "My flight is scheduled for departure on the 23rd, as is my usual custom."

"I bet your mom will be so proud of you." She squeezed him into yet another involuntary hug, Angela's own pride possibly rivaling that of any blood relative he could produce. At his side, Jack Hodgins nudged him again, just forcefully enough to sway Zack off his balance and the impish laugh that came out of Jack revealed it was meant as brotherly hazing. A big brother, teasing the younger sibling.

Brennan turned away, gazing once again at the hollow, empty Christmas presents left under that Christmas tree year after year. No family to open them. No family at all. The hollow emptiness of those boxes reached deep inside her own thoracic cavity, shoving warmth and contentment aside as the cold and empty settled in. Like snow on the inside, she felt cold to the point of burning.

The nerves can't tell the difference, it just hurts.

As the short celebration over Zack's successful dissertation defense lost momentum, the friends prepared for departure in clumps of two or three. Angela tugged on Jack Hodgins, and they two were tailed by Zack (still wearing the wool hat Hodgins had stuffed onto his head, and rather too proudly). A moment later Camille Saroyan leaned in to whisper something in Seeley Booth's ear, prompting him to break into a dusky grin. He started to get up, but then halted at the sight of his partner, who occupied herself with gamely gathering up her bag and settling Zack's lunch bill.

Keeping up appearances was an onerous task. She hitched her lips up higher, pasting the smile in place for a little while longer.

"Where are you headed, Bones?"

"Back to the lab."

"We could give you a lift…."

"Why? It's a short walk." Hazarding a glance at him as last, Brennen found his disconcerting attention turned her way, as if he was acting upon a suspicion that she intended to go back alone specifically with intent to 'wallow.' _I will not wallow_, she told herself defiantly. _If he thinks that's what I'm planning to do_…_._

"It's Friday," Cam chimed in, her amusement evident enough that Brennan knew Cam's dimple would be visible even without having to confirm the fact visually.

Brennan stuffed her wallet back into her bag, trading it for keys and as the skull swung loosely at the end of her keychain, she recalled handing these keys over to her brother merely two days before. Directly behind her sternum, actual pain jammed outwards so sharply that she drew an answering sharp breath, almost a gasp. Booth was stepping towards her so Brennan quickly shook her head as if the movement itself might ward him off.

"It is Friday, and yet I fail to see how that fact bears any relevance." Grabbing the handbag and tossing it over one shoulder, Brennan turned for the Diner's exit. "I'll see you on Monday, Booth. Good night, Doctor Saroyan."

With no further attention directed backward she pushed through the door, turned the corner and halted (involuntarily) just outside the plate glass window, where Booth only an hour ago had assured her, '_there's more than one kind of family_.' Drawing another stilted breath, she chanced a glance inside after all, spotting Cam's hand slipping into Booth's much larger one.

Out came all the bottled-up air, pushed out by another press of pain.

She made it back inside the lab less than fifteen minutes later and, as she passed beneath the first sprigs of mistletoe lying in wait, Brennan briefly considered tearing every single one of them down. Rather than doing that, she settled for removing the one hanging above her own office doorway, deriving a measure of satisfaction from crushing the dried plant in her left hand. The berries were hard, the leaves crackling into jagged pieces that pierced her palm. It had dried out considerably since being pinned up ten days prior.

Upon reaching her desk, she slammed the skull-capped keys onto the surface, slid open a top drawer and disposed of the two things she would no longer be needing. The book extolling the virtues of North Carolina flew into her trash can with a loud '_chuck!_' and the crushed mistletoe was flung down a half second later.

Rooting through the drawer one last time Brennan extracted a paper and flipped it, seeking the number that would ensure she would not remain here to 'wallow.' Yanking out her phone, she dialed and waited…. "Hello, Doctor Vasilas? This is Doctor Temperance Brennan. … Yes, it's good to hear from you, too. … Well, that's why I'm calling. Due to an unforeseen change of circumstances, I find that I am available to join your team after all. I can depart as early as the 22nd…."

But she should have known nothing would work out as planned.

~Q~

_22 December 2006._

Snow.

She hated it.

Really.

It was cold, for one thing. And wet. And blinding white. There was also wind whipping against her cheeks and pelting her with icy little darts that stung and tears streaking out of the corners of her eyes, freezing against the creases caused by so much squinting.

Squint.

Temperance Brennan heard the word in _his_ voice, which brought out a rather heavy sensation of strangulation. Could such an unpleasant stew of self-pitying emotions actually suffocate a person? She thought, yes.

It just might.

Miserably, she blew out a disgusted breath and watched steam explode from her mouth, curl upwards to dissipate into ragged wisps and then it was gone. How apropos, because happiness comes and goes in much the same manner.

(This self-pitying thing, she was getting rather good at it.)

Trudging ten steps further away from Angela's Christmas party, where Christmas carols were spilling out a slightly opened doorway and becoming increasingly muted as she got further away, she braved another glance forward into the whistling wind. It cut through her, through her coat, her jeans, her cute little heeled boots which would have been fine on a plane to North Carolina.

That damn lump was back, thickening her throat.

It was hard to breathe.

Brennan looked up into an unforgiving, blank white sky that held no sympathy at all even as it had denied her a last minute flight to somewhere south of Christmas. No flights out, no thanks to this blizzard, but somehow Angela's Christmas party managed to go on.

Bitterly, she laughed.

_What do you have against me_, she pouted. And it was beyond foolish to anthropomorphize the sky but really, could you blame her? It just seemed as if the universe or at least that particular lenticular cloud formation swirling over her head must have it out for her, for why else would it have ensured her one last chance to get the hell away … would be blown out by a blizzard.

The useless transference of one round trip from North Carolina to San Salvador (departing today at 1730 hours) was still crumpled up in her pocket, and she was out the three hundred dollars for the effort. It was the only place she could think of to go, the worst place in so many ways, with so many bad memories but there would also be plantains and _pupusas con laroca_ and warm tropical heat.

No snow.

No ankle-deep snowdrifts to slog through.

No missing persons numbering two. Not for her, at any rate, because she would go ankle deep into the mud in search of someone else's missing father and brother. Not her own.

Snuffling, feeling the icy burn of a dripping nose turn to freezing, she halted at the edge of the Jeffersonian's rose garden. It was buried: just bare, thorny twigs cut down low and white covering all the paths and flower beds. Benches humped under lumps of snow.

So quiet it felt like cotton stuffed into her ears, but also a growing pierce of pain from the cruel wind that somehow failed to make noise. Even the wind could not conquer the cold which stole away all sounds (or at least her ability to perceive them).

Her toes, jammed as they were into the pointy box of high-heeled boots, had long since gone silent which probably meant frost bite was imminent (not that she particularly cared). She kept walking, daring the danger with her toes so far gone and all sensation lost. One more careless step and her heel shot forward, splitting her legs as she flailed and failed to catch her balance.

Down she went, the cold snow caking her back and buttocks and one thigh once she managed to pull herself upright enough to look. Disgusted, Brennan began brushing it away.

"Bones, what are you doing alone out here?"

Where had he even come from? She looked up to see her partner picking his way carefully across the frozen path, evidently following her unsteady footprints through the snow. If harboring resentment towards the sky and snow was unreasonable, so was the anger that flared his way. It might not be his fault that she wasn't getting anything she'd wanted this Christmas but it certainly _was_ his fault for coming out here.

"Avoiding people," she snarled.

_And music and mistletoe and eggnog, and Secret Santas, and how much I was looking…_

_…forward…_

Not backward, for once.

But she'd been hurled backwards all the same. It was just like that year, every detail of her previous disappointment recreated and repeated in the last days before Christmas, even if slightly out of order. Dropping her eyes, she bit cold lips and just wondered if it would ever stop hurting.

God, she HATED Christmas.

Tears, fat and hot, slid out of her eyes against her will.

_I hate it, I hate it._

She was behaving with shocking immaturity and didn't care to correct herself. Sixteen years later it was like being sixteen all over again. Drawing her knees up she pressed her eyes against the coarse denim and felt shudders rocking her shoulders. Her knees were getting hot-wet-cold now and the shudders just kept rolling and only seemed to get worse when he dropped down beside her.

A hand came around her, tightening and clamping her against his side and her token resistance amounted to a stiffness that lasted all of ten seconds before she finally let herself melt against his warm side. She just cried then, admitted to herself that it was, in fact, crying that she was indulging in at the moment and he probably knew full well.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Gratefully, she noted his sensibility in not telling her it was 'going be okay;' because they both knew it would not be. Instead, he just said it again. "I'm so sorry."

Because he was.

"If I could take away what happened you know that I would, Bones."

Somehow that hurt most of all, a crushing wave of grief finally breaking loose when she accepted the fact that her family leaving her (_again_, at Christmas _again_) was only part of the reason she was out here crying.

Eventually the rolling shudders and shaking shoulders came to a slow stop. The headache persisted, a throbbing under her frontal bone and the twin nails being driven into her eardrums by the cold having now reached a condition called unbearable.

"Are you feeling better?"

She nodded.

But no.

Not 'better,' just … numb. (And numb hurt less, so in a roundabout way she was better than before.) If she thought about it in those terms then Brennan was 'better' but… Not factually, objectively finding herself in an improved condition she simply nodded because it was an easier thing to accomplish. The nodding.

It was easy to do, to move her cheek up and down as she let him tilt her body his way.

And then, as so often seemed to happen, Booth made it 'better' just by being there. That arm seemed to draw her even more tightly against him and a hand stroked slowly up and down her arm. It made her forget how much her ears and heart were still aching.

She shuddered again, a final bow indicating her tears had left the stage. Then she just stayed there, almost embraced by Booth and knowing this would have to end very soon. (Her jeans were soaked through, and his were, too.) But it felt better so she didn't want to move.

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you with the others?" She muttered this, volume muffled by her face still pressing against her pants.

"Oh believe me, I'd much rather be back inside where it's warm and fun. I plan on getting back to the party as soon as possible."

It didn't explain why he'd come out into the gardens, however, and that was what she'd wanted to know. "So then why are you out here, where it's boring and cold?"

"Because you are."

There was nothing to say, so she said nothing.

"Come on, Bones. I'm freezing."

"I don't want to go back there."

Cautiously, Booth stood himself up and not without several groans and creaks from his aching bones. Without her permission he gathered her up as well, tugging upon her arm until her choices amounted to pulling back (and flopping further down into the snow) or letting him get her on her feet.

So she was standing a moment later, wracked with shivers and misery.

"Why not?"

Why was she avoiding everyone.

"Everyone is matched to someone else, everyone has a Secret Santa." Angela had Jack, Zack had Naomi, Cam had Booth, and they all kissed under the mistletoe. It was merely a series of facts, not an explanation and she wasn't quite sure if stating a fact in this context was not also, indirectly, making a complaint. Ashamed of what she feared her facts implied, Brennan turned her back and crossed her arms against the cold.

"I see."

He probably did. Booth was perceptive in ways she could never hope to be.

Biting her lip again, she allowed her partner to turn her back towards the lab but before he could push her into returning she shook her head. "Envy is an ugly state of mind."

"It's human."

"My flight got canceled, it's too late to book another so I'm stuck here. Alone."

There. She'd said it.

"You're not alone."

Somehow, without her quite realizing it, Booth had got her walking and they were going back the way they'd come. She'd stumbled just now, which was how she'd come to awareness.

"Those boots are dangerous," Booth admonished.

"Angela insisted I wear high heels. She says I need to slow down."

"Why," he laughed.

"So you can keep up with me. It makes no sense but that's what she said."

"Me?" Bemused, he shrugged and slowed his pace to match hers.

See? Angela was wrong, Booth had no trouble staying ahead of her.

"And I am alone, Booth. Cam is driving to New York. Zack leaves for Minnesota tomorrow. Angela has Jack and her dad. You have Parker. I was going to … to see Russ, but now…."

His eyes softened. Under the fading snowy light they melted like caramel and if it weren't so inappropriately cannibalistic she might be tempted to taste how deep that sweetness went. Devouring Booth, the first time she'd wanted a gift for Christmas in all these years but Booth was Cam's Secret Santa. And Cam was his.

Giving Cam to Booth seemed just as poetic and fitting as giving Angela to Hodgins. Having gone to such lengths ensuring the happiness of her friends, Brennan lamented the human failing she found within herself, that she would fall prey to such seething envy after steeling herself against it for so long. It is not rational to want what you can't have.

Taking her chilled-to-bloodless hand in his, Booth tugged.

"Come on."

"Where are you taking me?"

"There's a gift waiting for you inside."

Resisting, pulling back with dangerous intensity, she risked another fall as she tugged her hand loose. "I don't have one, Booth. I'm the one who matched the names and I assure you, I did not match myself to anyone so there's no Secret Santa gift for me."

Stepping closer, so close she felt heat rolling off him as his caramelized eyes captured hers, Booth made an impossible promise. "There is. Trust me. And you know what, Bones? If you don't believe me then come inside and prove me wrong."

~Q~

* * *

><p><strong>Note for Spitfire303:<strong> So the reason there ended up being angst (even though you didn't want it) was because I went back and checked the air dates to see which episodes fell closest to Christmas in season 2. _Judas on the Pole_ aired on 13 December 2006. I had forgotten that! Basically, Brennan's father and brother abandoned her ten days before Christmas all over again. Ouch.

But Booth came out to get her for a reason and we're going to find out why in the next chapter….


	3. Hodgins

**Author's Note:** Each chapter is told from a different character's POV. This one fills in a time gap between Angela and Brennan's chapters. (Just in case anyone gets confused.)

Thank you for reading and thank you for all the reviews! I'm going to be sending out a lot of back-owed thank you notes tonight and tomorrow...

~Q~

* * *

><p><strong>~ The Match Under the Mistletoe ~<strong>

* * *

><p>~Q~<p>

**Hodgins**

_18 December 2006_

"She's going to El Salvador. On Friday!"

Angela burst into the Ookie room flapping her arms, whirling as if trying to chase off phantom pigeons and the danger posed by her distress forced the room's occupant to meet her at the door. A beaker nearly knocked to the floor was whisked out of harm's way just in the nick of time, causing her to pause just the flailing part. Her widened eyes were still broadcasting alarm.

"Well, I guess that's to be expected," Jack Hodgins found himself agreeing. After watching her father and brother vanish a few days ago, right before Christmas, it was a given that Doctor B would revert to form and vanish herself as soon as United Airlines would allow.

"No, this is — we can't let her go!"

To see her this upset was such a rare thing that he couldn't help asking. "Why not?"

"Do you have any idea what happened to her the last time she was in El Salvador?" Abruptly Angela stopped herself, clapping hands over her mouth and peering over them as if realizing she'd just blurted out a confidence. Glancing guiltily past him, scanning the rest of the Ookie area for Zack or other eavesdropping techs, she sagged just a little when her belated reconnaissance revealed they were alone.

Did he have any idea.

Studying a stag beetle trapped inside a specimen jar, noting that creature's fate bore certain similarities to his own a few weeks prior (trapped in a small space but at least not in the dark), he wondered what he should say. During those hours underground he'd learned far more about his coworker than he'd ever expected to know, and she about him. By mutual agreement (unspoken), neither had mentioned anything regarding the confidences shared and his implicit understanding since their emergence was, that neither of them would ever repeat what they'd learned about each other.

But Angela was Brennan's best friend and clearly she knew something.

"She was in the dark for three days," Jack revealed slowly, testing to see if what Brennan had shared with him in the car was the same confidence Angela feared having inadvertently exposed.

Her hands fell, her relief mixed with curiosity. "You do know."

"Doctor B has a funny way off offering comfort." Shaking his head, Hodgins was quite surprised to find himself laughing at something not even distantly amusing. Horror was not 'fun' or funny. Except, now that he was thinking of it, the frank way she'd said it actually did present as comedy's cousin: dry, nearly sardonic, tinged with the haughty confidence of an expert. "She assured me being buried alive in a car was a vastly superior fate to being locked in a black prison cell, subject to beatings and threats with a bag over her head. And that having company was better than being alone."

Though nodding along with all that he'd said, the final statement caused Angela's feathery brows to lift off in flight, her beautiful lips pursing as she pondered that last little gem of hard-won wisdom.

"I was in a lot of pain," he added, swallowing down a bilious bulge of bad memory just from thinking of what had happened so recently. "She kept talking, trying to keep me from freaking out."

Tears spilling, Ange touched echoing streams coming from his, just as tender with him now as she was that night when she'd first offered him companionship. "We can't let her go to El Salvador just because she thinks she's alone. Can't you do something?"

Laughter over tears always feels a little forced, as if the sorrow won't let go without a fight while the humor is dancing around with a feather and tickling in all the wrong places. That's how he felt right that moment, dark memories gripping tight while Angela's love and faith (in his wealth) tickled him under bright lights. "What, am I supposed to buy United and ground all flights to Central America?"

"Yeah. You can do that, right?" Her hope-filled sigh brought out a match from him.

"Sure. I'll get right on it."

Nodding, she almost seemed to believe they'd formed a foolproof plan. "Her flight is leaving on the 22nd, so we have plenty of time."

"To do what," he wondered aloud. (Because United wasn't up for sale and forced take-overs were not Cantilever style.)

"We can … invite her to have Christmas with us."

"Me, you, Doctor B, and your Dad…?" The thought of meeting her infamous father already had him on edge but this was just asking for disaster.

"No, come on, don't be like that. My dad will love you. Besides, he already likes Bren."

"He does." Hodgins wasn't sure how she knew that Billy Gibbons liked anyone, or even if it was possible given the man was such an enigma. He just … stared. Through those dark glasses. Then again, Doctor B was a three-times black belt and Billy was getting on in years…. So yeah, maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"Oh absolutely. He said she's a straight shooter, that's a high compliment. Okay, so you ask her to join us and I'll badger her into helping me finish plans for the Christmas party."

"Baby, the party's on the same day her flight leaves, and Christmas is after that. She's not going to stay."

"She's leaving that night, that means she can be at the party before she goes. And then, we'll just make it so that she wants to stay." Angela nodded to herself, mustering up the fortitude to completely vanquish every snarled objection a wounded Brennan was likely to offer.

And Jack fully believed Angela was up to the task. After all, she'd managed to goad Brennan into attending the raucous, Jeffersonian-wide party last year, so how much harder could it be to drag the reluctant anthropologist into a much smaller, intimate, lab-mates only Secret Santa fest that Brennan herself had had a hand in arranging…?

The woman they were plotting against emerged from her office, face chilly and turned away from any potential sources of eye contact.

Yeah. Angela's odds rivaled a snowball's chance on the Devil's playground.

Getting her to attend the party after all that had happened would be hard enough, but getting her to give up her flight southwards…? That was going to take some kind of miracle.

Seeing the work cut out for her Angela drew Jack deeper into his own Ookie space, laying her head against his shoulder with a sorrowful little snuffle. "If I ever seen Max or Russ Brennan again I swear I will kick them in the balls. No mercy."

As Brennan breezed past Camille Saroyan the chill increased (upping the odds that snowballs in hell might actually survive for an hour given current conditions) and Hodgins shook his head. "The Brennan family is a piece of work, but that's not the only reason she's so distant these days."

His eyes strayed up to the mistletoe hanging at the door.

~Q~

_22 December 2006_

It is a truth seldom acknowledged that the definition of a miracle depends upon the eye of the beholder.

Hodgins held this truth to be self-evident as he watched the renaissance of Angela's hope and its growing contrast with Temperance Brennan's darkening countenance. Both of them were standing at the loft window, gaping outwards with equal measures of delight or dismay — again, depending upon whom you asked.

"Oh, this is perfect!" Angela crowed, clapping her hands joyously. "Snow right before Christmas, during our party? We can have snowball fights, make snow angels. Oh Bren, isn't this wonderful?"

"No. It's not. When is it going to stop?" Aghast, Doctor B whipped out her phone that had begun faintly buzzing in her pocket. "I'm supposed to leave for the airport at four."

Zack pressed his own advantage, squeezing between them to note the lowering sky. "The prediction calls for six to eight inches accumulation by six o'clock tonight. It appears we've already received an inch."

As her dismay deepened into distress, Brennan lamented the latest disaster to befall her this year. "But my flight is…."

"Most likely going to be cancelled," Zack opined.

One might be tempted to call him a pessimist but, as was usually the case … he was correct. Her crestfallen features said it all, as soon as she got a look at the incoming text message. "It's cancelled. They're predicting ten inches."

"Sweetie, you know you're welcome to stay with Jack and me." Not even waiting for a confirmation from him on whether or not it would be okay to ask, Angela turned to Zack. "And you, if your flight home gets cancelled tomorrow."

"Yeah, man." Hodgins proffered the most welcoming smile he could produce, nodding for good measure when the smile didn't seem to be enough to corral either of his coworkers. "I got more space than I know what to do with. You can both come. And Angela's dad will be there."

"I thought we weren't allowed to ask about his identity."

Zack's doubtful recollection of her firm order from last year introduced an unwelcome burst of tachycardia in Hodgins. If they couldn't talk about him being famous, then what could they discuss? For days! Hodgins found himself gulping down a bit of residual terror.

"Well, I guess we've all gotten past that awkward, _getting to know you_ phase, right? So, my dad is a rock star. Surprise! But you know, he's just my dad. I mean, to me he's…. Yeah. But, um, he's 'Mr. Gibbons' to my friends. I mean, don't call him Billy and you'll be fine." Angela nodded a little too brightly, noting Zack's blank stare was morphing into panic while her best friend was slowly withdrawing from the conversation.

"I'm not going to call him anything," Brennan mumbled.

And then there were three standing at the window. Brennan's retreat down the stairs left hollow echoes pelting across the loft's steel treads.

"What's it going to take to get her to stay with us," Hodgins wondered aloud.

"Oh, _now_ you're finally on board with this?"

"She's a black belt!"

Breathing out slowly, Zack added: "And your dad is scary."

"You're both cowards. But fine. Whatever works." Spinning, Angela squared her shoulders and marched straight into battle.

~Q~

Deck the hall, dim the light, play some music and dance all night.

If Angela had her way, that was still a possibility (the all night thing) but for now she seemed to be content with afternoon delight. Smiles all around, good-natured aspersions cast back and forth, raised glasses of punch and even Brennan, for the moment, looked pleased. Booth had her cornered and laughing over some highly animated tale, her eyes crinkling and her face more relaxed than anyone had seen it in weeks. That's where Angela was directing her attention, her month-long mission seemingly a _fait accompli_.

Booth and Brennan were edging ever closer to a sprig of mistletoe hanging over the exit of the platform….

"Any minute now," she murmured.

Hodgins took a seat beside his satisfied hostess, the party planner extraordinaire (matchmaker on the side), and nudged her approvingly. "You're pretty good at this."

"When I was growing up, I helped my dad's personal assistant sometimes. He taught me quite a few tricks."

"For putting together Christmas parties?"

"Among other things," she laughed, raising a puckish brow that told Hodgins he'd already heard everything she would ever tell him about that particular tutor.

"You know, I could just ask your dad…."

"Don't you dare."

"Oh, right," Hodgins agreed. "He probably doesn't know."

"There's nothing wrong with keeping a little secret."

"You're a little too talented at keeping secrets." Holding up the gift she'd given him (a nondescript tropical seedling with long, green leaves and a name that made him laugh out loud), his delight at getting it obliterated any effort at sounding peeved over her deception. "You told me you had Zack."

Angela's eyes snapped teasing sparks. "Oh, did I say Zack? I was sure I said '_Jack_.' You must have misunderstood."

Oh no, she'd outright lied but he couldn't be mad because…. This. This darling little plant. Even knowing there was a ten-year wait ahead before he could partake of the odoriferous spectacle-to-come couldn't extinguish his excitement. Some things are _so_ worth waiting for. And this was definitely one of those things. "Where did you _get_ this?!"

_Amorphophallus titanum_. Who wouldn't love it, just by the name alone (_misshapen giant ... phallus. ha! Aptly named_), but what made it even better was the name it was more popularly known by: Corpse Flower. Blooms every few years to reveal a huge flower bearing a horrific stench like rotting flesh, extremely rare outside of Sumatra and now he had his very own specimen.

"Bren helped me. She knows a Botanist over at the Botanical Gardens."

God, he loved her for this: for thinking of it, for getting it, for watching with that darling little smirk while she dropped hints regarding its taxonomy and nomenclature, waiting until he realized what he was holding. "Ange..."

"It was her idea, actually."

Startled now, he turned from the artist eyeing the green sprout with distaste to the anthropologist still flirting with Booth. "I asked if she could help me think of an exotic plant to give you and she said you'd probably appreciate a Corpse Flower. Just know that I am not going anywhere near that thing when it's blooming."

He laughed, pulling her in for another tender kiss. "Thank you. I love it."

As they drew apart she sighed. "You know, we should thank Bren, too. I mean, she assigned us to be each other's Secret Santa and I know she helped Naomi get Zack that watch he's been talking about for weeks — you know, the one that will do everything but his taxes. And Cam gave Booth ring-side Capitals seats for four Saturday night home games."

"And Booth got Cam tickets to West Side Story," Hodgins laughed. "It's a Broadway musical featuring unrequited love and knife fights so, win-win."

A flurry of movement caught his eye, causing Hodgins to turn his head the other way just in time to see pretty Naomi (from Paleontology) wrap her slender arms around Zack Addy and kiss him for the third time today. "I just love it, _Doctor Addy_." And Zack was blushing hot pink but loving every minute of her gratitude.

"Naomi really loves that fossil bead necklace," Hodgins chuckled.

"Well it's got petrified bamboo, amber, ancient coral … everything from trilobites to coprolites."

Noticing that Cam was drawing Booth away from Brennan at last, Hodgins decided now might be a good time to distract her with a heart-felt thanks for the stinky flower he couldn't wait to cultivate. She was standing by herself watching her partner and before he'd covered half the distance he saw the change come over her.

The pretty warmth bled away, leaving nothing but desolation in the wake of her hasty departure. Before he could even imagine what had caused it she'd already spun and silently slipped out the door. Hodgins turned as well, looking back just in time to see Booth ending his kiss with Cam under the mistletoe.

Their eyes met, man to man, and Booth asked. "What's wrong with Bones...?"

~Q~

"How long before he manages to drag her back in here?"

Angela's sardonic question turned his head away from the window, prompting one of his own. "Why, are we laying bets?"

"Sure." She shrugged, glancing backwards at the Christmas party in full swing. "We have competing forces at work: Brennan's bad mood versus Booth's persistence and charm."

Hodgins grinned at the odds. "Twenty minutes. Doctor B doesn't give up easily."

"Five minutes," Zack disagreed, consulting his new wristwatch purely as a matter of precision. "Frigid temperatures will hasten the process considerably."

"Fifteen," chipped in Cam. They all turned to regard her contribution with surprise, earning themselves a half-hearted shrug. "There's no hard feelings here, but all things considered…? He's got his work cut out for him."

"Yeah, about that," Angela purred.

Cam's eyes widened. "That was not my idea, it was his."

"It was Booth's idea for you to kiss him publicly under the mistletoe?"

"No, _that_ was my idea because I was tired of hiding. It was Seeley's idea to hide us in the first place."

Hodgins snorted. "Well yeah, because he was afraid of repercussions with a certain partner."

Waving her arms with more passion than she'd ever expressed before, Cam defended her actions. "Look. Doctor Brennan is no shrinking violet. I assumed she would go after anything she wanted, Seeley included, and if she wasn't taking any interest…? Green light."

"Yeah only, she doesn't operate that way." Angela turned back to the window, squinting out into the snow as she watched Booth vanish into swirling snowflakes. "She won't go where she's not invited. Booth never extended the invitation."

"How is that my fault," Cam demanded.

"It isn't." Hodgins followed up his absolution with a sage nod of wisdom, hard-earned six feet underground. "Doctor B never let him know how she felt."

So Booth couldn't be blamed either, if he didn't have all the facts.

One carefully vetted fact, perfectly timed, might be just what the doctor ordered. (Considering the fact that she'd saved his life _and_ ensured he'd get a Corpse Flower for Christmas, Hodgins figured his little bit of meddling was the least he could do in return.)

It was fitting, then, that in the end Hodgins won with twenty-two minutes elapsed since Booth went outside. They'd all abandoned their vigil at the window, waiting instead by the punchbowl which was close enough to hear them coming long before they came into view.

When the partners emerged back through the door, still bickering, Hodgins noted Doctor B was red-nosed and stumbling while Booth grimly tugged her across the lab. Ignoring every sputtered objection she could muster he pulled his blustering partner up the steps to the platform, setting off squeaking alarms and Hodgins grinned. The G-Man did that on purpose.

As the alarms squealed and every single sentient being inside the lab turned to stare, Seeley Booth looked up. Another quite deliberate move on his part, followed by rough positioning of his partner so she was standing precisely where he wanted her. One of the security officers finally silenced that squall and just in time. The entire lab found itself in thrall, watching Booth wrap a large hand around the back of his partner's head.

No one was breathing at this point.

Angela grabbed Hodgins by the hand, her nails biting into his palm so hard it hurt, like teeth, but all he did was squeeze back because….

Good Lord!

He'd done it.

Half a tug, half a step, (a collective gasp!) and Seeley Booth was finally kissing Temperance Brennan under the mistletoe, in admittedly _the_ most public display of affection the reclusive FBI Agent ever could have hoped to avoid. It wasn't just a peck. Nowhere near a nuzzle. No. He was pressing her closer, pushing his lips hard against hers, opening his mouth and demanding her full participation.

It was the kind of kiss that curls toes and blisters paint. The kind that vacuums oxygen out of lungs, leaving both parties breathless over the inferno burning between them. And even then they didn't stop.

Booth carpeted her face with rows of kisses, nuzzling now, nipping next, his palms splaying around her head, holding her still while he kissed the hell out of her. "Anthropologically," he muttered against her mouth. "A man kissing a woman…" more scalding caresses against her cheeks, nose, eyes "…in public…" and another dive past her open lips, so blatant that any fool could tell there'd been tongue contact. "Under the mistletoe…"

He pulled back at last, and she was still trapped between his hands, under that magical herb.

"What does it mean, Bones?"

Jack Hodgins swore he'd never seen anything hotter than this, the way Doctor B looked every bit the part of a dazed, love-struck teenager. "I… I don't know."

"Does it mean nothing?"

She shook her head, her eyes shimmering like grey-blue puddles reflecting rainbow weather: after the storm passes and the blue is just starting to peek out past the clouds. Much as he adored Angela, Hodgins acknowledged Brennan's eyes were the most marvelous, changeable color, arguably her best asset; and how Booth had managed to resist her for so long was anybody's guess.

Well, he sure wasn't resisting now.

Sending a poignant glance Cam's way, one that could easily be misconstrued (especially by someone as naïve as Brennan), Seeley Booth turned back to the woman he was bent on winning. "One kiss is not a commitment. Two kisses…." And again, the onslaught caught her off guard.

The heat generated between those two singed everyone in the room. No one watching could help but be affected and Hodgins had half a mind to drag Angela into the nearest nook for some Christmas nookie. Only captivity to scalding curiosity over what would happen next kept him rooted because there was no predicting. (Just because he'd instigated it, didn't mean Hodgins had any idea how it was going to turn out.)

By the time the second series of seductive maneuvers came to an end Doctor B was on the verge of either tears or mayhem. (Really. It could go either way when she was wearing that particular frown.) Torn as if tormented but also irritated and now thoroughly confused, she accused her partner of false pretenses. "You said there was a gift for me."

Booth's smile might rightly be called predatory. "_You_ said couples who kiss more than once under the mistletoe will be getting married."

Well, that did it.

Doctor B's mouth moved to argue before the words connected, that much was clear. The proof that she'd begun to speak before perceiving arrived half a second later, with a strangled little squeak when she finally realized just what he'd said. If Booth had suddenly sprouted wings and declared he was Cupid she couldn't have been any more amazed than she was at this pronouncement.

~Q~

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><p><strong>Author Asks:<strong> How much would you hate me if I ended it here...? :P

There was supposed to be three chapters but I've already run WAY over my (self-imposed) word limit. I'm sure you're all wondering what is going on. So, one more chapter to explain exactly how this insane turn of events came about.


	4. Booth

**Author's Note:** Before you read any further, I want you to know that names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. Also, it wasn't me! Had he asked _me_, I would have advised scissors. :P

~Q~

* * *

><p><strong>~ The Match Under the Mistletoe ~<strong>

* * *

><p>~Q~<p>

**Booth**

_22 December 2006_

"No. Come on, Bones, everyone has a good Christmas story, even you."

"I don't." And she didn't look like she wanted to talk about it. Brennan was edging backwards, sidling ever closer to an exit and Seeley Booth took that as a sign that he needed to step up his game.

Cheering up his partner in times of woe was the sort of challenge Booth relished, a hand-rubbing undertaking calling for stealth, steeled nerves and perhaps even a bit of stupidity. Today, in particular, she was prickly and distant and prone to snapping out terse replies to all queries regarding her now twice-foiled holiday plans. It was a sore subject, understandably so. Therefore, the fact that he was even trying to smooth out the wrinkle between her brows and soften the harsh set of her jaw bespoke of a subtle, self-destructive streak existing within him, one that had pushed Booth into many a reckless endeavor.

Like ... bringing up happier Christmases past in hopes to trigger a little joy in her (as opposed to an explosion).

In order to cheer her, he had to get her to play and in order to do _that_, he had to get her to stay. The trick was all in the impudence, the _double-dog dare_ that would make her turn and stand her ground. She never walked away from a provocation so all he had to do was call one out.

"Not even when you were a kid? You know, before you went all Science Maiden and stopped having fun?"

(It also helped to get the wording just right. Irreverent.)

"Science maiden…?" Her distaste came complete with the wrinkled nose, a pair of rolling eyes and finished with a shake of the head.

"Come on, you gotta have something. Uh, best gift you ever got."

Bones answered that one faster than he expected, blurting it out so thoughtlessly than even she looked surprised. "A tool set."

But as soon as she said it, the almost amused affect that he'd managed to tease out of her slipped away and she was back on the verge of leaving. Scrambling within his own mind, Booth pulled out one of his more insane stories to keep her entertained, her mind off her own past before it could pull even more humor out of her. Before it could make her vanish just like her family had. "All right I got a great one, listen to this. You ready?"

Nodding, arms crossed, she looked ready to growl. He'd take it.

"So, I was twelve, Jared was eight. I had model airplanes, did I ever tell you that?" He didn't, he could tell — even before her negative affirmation. It was important to get the details established, in order for her to appreciate the story, so he took a quick detour into description. (Just to set the stage.) "Balsa wood planes, they're really lightweight. They were these wood and tissue-paper model airplanes that Pops and I built and painted together, then we pinned them up to my bedroom ceiling using nails and fishing line. That last part is very important."

"The fishing line," she probed, clearly doubtful that such a detail could be important.

"Well, all of it but I was getting at both the fishing line and nails being important." He chuckled, a fondness for the whole incident emerging. "I got a new plane that Christmas morning. Pops and I spent the afternoon putting it together."

Brennan was getting restless again at the mention of family and Christmas, shifting her weight, glancing around, so he sped up the narrative.

"Long story short, I wanted to hang it but all the nails were taken. There was this really big red plane hanging over my bed — huge, like two feet across — and it wasn't my favorite. Besides that, it was the only one I could reach so I was being practical. Right?"

Bones always liked practical. She nodded, catching onto an edge of humor just from the incipient sparkle of mischief entering this story. "I figured I would untie the huge plane and replace it with my new one, only I couldn't. The fishing line was tied up too tight around the nail and I couldn't break it, either."

"So what did you do?"

He grinned. "Well, I got a lighter."

"A lighter plane…?"

"No, a cigarette lighter."

"That … does not sound like a good idea."

"Oh, it wasn't," he laughed. "I got up on the bed and got the lighter working. That was hard — I'd never done it before."

"And…?"

"I figured I'd burn through the fishing line since it was too tangled to untie and too tough to break."

"Why didn't you just cut it?"

"Kids aren't supposed to play with knives, Bones."

"And yet you had a lighter."

"I knew what I was doing."

"How is that possible, when you just stated you'd never used a lighter previous to this incident?"

"Well I'd seen my dad use it. I was just gonna burn through the fishing line. How hard can it be?"

"Considering the fact that you're telling me '_a great Christmas story,_' I'll conclude your plan did not work as intended."

"Ah, you are smart for a genius … girl."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"If you were a guy, you'd know disasters _always_ start with lighters."

"This is why juvenile males enjoy such a high mortality rate."

"I wouldn't use the word 'enjoy.'"

She snorted. "Clearly you are enjoying the reminiscence, which suggests that you look upon the original adventure with fondness."

"No, actually." Growing thoughtful for just a moment, he added, "It's what came after that I love thinking about."

With that cryptic hint dispensed, Booth returned to his daring narrative. "Okay, so there I am perched on my bed. My arm is reaching for the highest point I could reach and I've got that lighter burning. I managed to grab the line and apply the flame. It started to burn; I think I had a second before I realized."

"Realized what."

"That I had one hand on the fishing line, one hand on the lighter…"

Booth didn't have to go any further before she guessed. "…And no hand on the plane?"

"The plane was going to fall and break. They're delicate."

"So what did you do?"

"I caught the plane."

"But your hands were otherwise engaged."

"Do you see where this is going…?"

"No." But she was smiling, amused, enjoying his tale of woe.

"I was still holding the lighter."

"…"

"Balsa wood. Paper. Flammable varnish & paint. Open flame."

Her eyes widened. "It caught fire?"

"Went up like a blow torch."

Though she tried valiantly not to, Bones snickered. Then she snorted. "I guess you should have just dropped it."

"Oh believe me, I did. The only problem was, I dropped the lighter, too. I was standing on my bed, remember? Yeah. The bedspread caught. So I was trying to put that out and knocked the burning plane onto the floor, and then my carpet caught fire."

"Booth," she gasped, horrified. "You set your room on fire?"

"Yeah. I started jumping up and down, trying to stomp it out. And that's when I heard Pops yelling 'What's going on up there?'"

Another giggle tumbled loose even as she struggled to keep a straight face. "What did you say?"

"What every kid says in a situation like that. '_Nothing._'"

Now giggling openly, she could barely get the question out. "You actually said 'nothing?' And he believed you?"

"Of course he didn't believe me, Bones. When a kid says 'nothing,' that means the house is burning down."

An actual peal of laughter burst forth, possibly the loudest she'd ever laughed in the lab (if not anywhere in her life) and he didn't mind making a fool of himself if it would get her looking like this. Happy. Beautiful. But mostly … happy.

And laughing at last.

She was so breathless with giggling that Bones couldn't get the question out, but Booth knew she would wonder what happened next. And he was coming to the part he loved best so he kept talking (injecting humor even where there was a lingering patch of hurt). "Pops came upstairs. It put the fear of God into me, let me tell you. I already had the fire out but my bed was still smoking, the carpet was charred black and the plane, pretty much ashes. I could only hope he'd give me Last Rites before he killed me."

That's what he remembers so fondly, the fear that infused him when his Pops opened the door. (Not just fear — actual, life-end-imminent _terror_ as an adult figure came up to catch him at unspeakable mischief.) Had it been Dad, young Seeley knew he would be bleeding and bruised within seconds and there would be no Last Anything other than a last breath. His whole body trembled with frozen terror as he waited.

Breath baited.

Because Pops was the man who had raised his violent, anger-driven Dad. And he'd only been living there for two months so he had no idea what to expect.

(How could this possibly be a favorite moment, any sensible person might ask.)

Pops stood in the doorway, sharp old eyes taking it all in: the guilty, frightened boy; the blackened bed; the shambles of boyish miscalculation laying at Seeley Booth's too-big feet. Within an instant Hank Booth knew exactly what had happened and he threw back his head like a lion getting ready to roar.

And he laughed.

He roared a full-out belly laugh that confounded the poor kid quailing in front of him.

_"Why are you laughing,"_ young Seeley had asked, now worried that his grandfather had concealed a sadistic side that took pleasure in another person's trembling fear.

_"Because if I don't laugh, I'll cry."_

Booth repeated those wise words to Bones, a lump rising in his throat as he recalled the moment, the relief, and the slow warmth that had filled him that night when his Pops just laughed. No anger, no hitting, no yelling. Just laughter, and then a resigned acceptance. _"When there's a mess this big, Seeley, we do the best we can to set things right__…."_

He wanted her to see that love often reveals itself in unexpected, gentle gestures (like making her laugh when she had every reason to roar) and yet the story didn't have quite the impact he'd been aiming for. As hoped, her expression shifted but not to anything resembling comprehension nor even relief. All the animation smoothed away until she became a blank mask at the same moment he felt a feminine hand curling over his arm.

"Seeley, I need to tell you something."

Speaking of big messes...

He'd been hiding a fling with Cam for months and Bones only copped on a couple of weeks ago. The awkward when Cam came to claim him was magnified by his near success in cheering up his partner and by Cam's propulsion that was actually pushing him even as he thought he was hesitating. He'd already ended up a few feet away, mission aborted, when he looked back.

Bones stood still, calm, quiet; lost, it seemed, in thought. Telling himself this was a way to give her a moment so at least the little bit of fatherly wisdom could sink in (enjoy this party: laugh or else you'll cry), Booth followed Cam to the mistletoe. He let her kiss him, wondered what it meant and why now and why this ripping sensation was filling his chest when her lips pressed firmly against his.

"What are you doing," he asked, pulling back. Because they didn't do this, they didn't do public displays. Not in front of Bones.

And the moment _that_ thought crossed his mind, the same sense of revelation settled over him that he'd felt that night when Pops laughed. Love comes in unexpected gestures. It must have shown on his face, if Cam's answer was any indication. For half a second, he thought he saw sadness swim through her dark eyes but it washed away with the dimpled smile she used to prove she was on her best behavior. "I'm kissing a friend under the mistletoe."

A friend.

She added, "That's what we are, right?"

He could almost see her pride at work, the forced, breathless laugh that concealed an ending they both needed. And she'd come right then, when Bones was laughing, to draw him over here and give him what he didn't even know he'd wanted. As wonderful as the hockey tickets were Booth thought Cam's real gift might be this kiss under the mistletoe. No anger, no hitting, no yelling. Just laughter, and then a resigned acceptance.

Friends.

"It was fun while it lasted." With a wink she stepped back and it was the same relief, too: the feeling that he could breathe again and everything was going to be all right.

Yet when he looked back less than a minute later (the messy mistake of a half-hidden fling cleaned up so kindly already), his partner was leaving. And Jack Hodgins was watching her go, a painful sympathy written in his eyes.

"What's wrong with Bones?"

It was Angela who answered him, coming up behind her boyfriend and favoring Booth with a thoroughly disgusted roll of the eyes. "Maybe you being blind to what's right in front of you."

She stomped away, leaving Booth with Hodgins and the two men avoided eye contact for a full minute. _What's right in front of me,_ was all he could wonder. He replayed the last five minutes, recalling the brilliant sparkle in his partner's eyes when he succeeded in making her laugh, in the joy he'd felt just sharing that moment with her and the interruption that followed. When Cam had pulled him away, he'd gone reluctantly and that might be what he should have seen within himself. He'd wanted to stay with Bones. She was already slipping out the door, disappearing, and this, coming as it did after he'd succeeded in making her laugh, tasted like a failed campaign.

He told himself the urge to chase after her was rooted in his own distaste for failure.

Hearing his companion clear his throat, Booth braced himself for, well, he didn't know what but it couldn't be good. He wanted to go mend things with Bones and he really did not want _this_ conversation whatever it was going to be, so Booth fidgeted himself another step away.

"You know, maybe it's none of my business," the Bug-man began.

"No, it's not." The fact that Hodgins had already suggested he should mind his own business was all Booth needed to confirm certain things should not be discussed between guys. Ever.

"When we were in that car, she…" and here he swallowed, his throat working noisily to clear whatever feeling had reared within to choke him. "She never stopped believing you would come. I had no hope at all but she just … she believed in you, man."

The impulse to go, to follow her, proved stronger than curiosity. His feet moved forward a step and then another and yet with more bravery than Booth would have expected, Hodgins stepped between Booth and his partner's vanishing form, holding him back. "Because it's Doctor B, I don't think she fully understands what that means. I'm hoping you do."

What Hodgins was implying caused Booth's heart to stumble, and a gulp as one kiss plus one departure (and all those wounded little glances over the last few weeks) finally equaled _obvious_ and he saw what had been right in front of him. Turning at the sound of lisping whispers just a few feet away, he saw Angela finish a fierce, mini-lecture aimed at Cam and Cam herself just nodding as if in agreement. Feeling Booth's regard, then, Cam swiveled her head and slowly nodded again — not in Booth's direction, but beyond him.

"Go, Seeley."

Go where….

Almost as if he'd asked aloud she nudged again. "Go after her."

He wasn't sure if her command was permission or dismissal, nor how he should react to either. His hesitation, mostly based on guilt as he recognized this was why she'd released him, caused Cam to lift a finger toward the mistletoe where her very recent and very public kiss 'between friends' had put more than one charade to the test. "All this mistletoe wasn't meant for us. It's her gift, not ours."

"Gift?" Who gives a ceiling paved in mistletoe as a gift…?

Squints. That's who.

"We're trying to give her what she really wants, and you, too." Angela checked with Cam — a quick, questioning glance — and upon receiving yet another acquiescence, she gave her gift: the great mistletoe conspiracy. "We're all making it happen but only you can give it to her."

"We all know you're in love with her," added Cam, once again proffering her 'get out of a relationship free!' card. "So go. Tell her."

Baffled at the unified circle of certainty surrounding him Booth sputtered out one last, confused denial. "But she never said anything."

Zack spoke up next, his implacable logic managing to untangle the mystery at last. "Doctor Brennan is under the impression that you are in love with Doctor Saroyan. It's evident in the pattern of how she assigned the Secret Santas: you and Doctor Saroyan have each other; Hodgins and Angela have each other; she assigned me to Naomi and Naomi to me. Then there's Doctor—"

"Yeah, okay. I got it." Booth brought a hand up, cutting off the rest as realization hit home. Love reveals itself in little gestures.

"The thing is," Angela explained. "She's never going to get in the way of what she thinks you want."

"So if I make it obvious that I want her…."

Hodgins smiled. "It might be an offer she can't refuse."

~Q~

So that's how they came to be standing here under mistletoe, facing off while alarms squalled and she was still spitting out arguments and he, determinedly, pushed her into position. Fully satisfied at last Booth took it as a sign from God when both the platform alarm and his partner fell silent. _Now_, it boomed from within his heart.

Do it now.

Her eyes widened in the last instant, just as he slid his palm behind her head and his intention became clear. It went silent in the lab like a Sprint commercial waiting for the pin to drop. Or like a battlefield when the pin has already been pulled from the grenade and dropped, leaving a soldier holding that grenade tight, clutching it close to the chest and everyone around him is holding their breath as they wait for the explosion.

He'd unpinned her.

Their eyes held, his daring her to pick up the pin and push it back in and hers daring him let go. Neither one of them backed down and that was all the proof he needed that the squints were right. He pulled her close to the chest and let go of his restraint.

Though a part of him wanted to savor every second of this kiss, so he could replay it later with specific words and recall the order of events precisely (each incremental increase of pressure, the delicious slide of her lips moving into position under his), none of that was possible. The taste of Temperance obliterated everything else for a moment.

Where he was, who was watching, none of it mattered — only the surrender he'd demanded and the battle they'd begun because she was not giving in without making her own demands. For every press harder she fought back, her tongue expelling his when he tried to slip past her defenses, her palms pressing rigidly outwards when he tried to pull her closer. Heat blistered within, and actual pain as every single cell in his body wrenched itself into a state of preparation. He'd never been turned on so fast, so far, so _fiercely_ in his thirty five years of life and far more in the sense of feeling infused with energy than simply wanting to subdue an opponent.

She made him feel alive, always had, and he thought it was combat but in truth … it was love.

The need to tell her was what finally separated them, Booth drawing away and drawing in a breath powerful enough to pull wisps of her hair his way. Needing to breathe and speak could not entirely override the need to keep the connection, however, so Booth breathed his words and caresses every place his lips could reach.

"Anthropologically…" her favorite word, usually coming from her mouth so he passed it back to her mouth to mouth, "a man kissing a woman … in public." Now his kisses shifted to everywhere, all over, each one an act of devotion if not an outright public declaration. _I love your nose; I love your eyes; I love this little mole that you cover with make-up and I love it when you don't._ What was she thinking, what would she say if he let her catch her own breath and answer back? For the moment, her only reply was a faint little moan which he took as an invitation to try her metaphorical door again. This time when he kissed her and tried to slide past her silky warm lips, she let him.

Even as his body was roaring into a greater state of alert, he drew away before he lost all control. "Under the mistletoe," Booth panted. "What does it mean, Bones?"

She looked every inch as affected as he felt: mouth fallen half open, lips glistening berry red, and eyes blinking open in half-dazed wonder. Bones admitting that she didn't know something brought out a fond smile that was rather quickly vanquished by further determination. She damn well _would_ know within the next sixty seconds if he had anything to say about it.

Thinking of his weak kiss with Cam and the way Bones had fled her status as witness, he probed, "Does it mean nothing?"

(Because if she thought so, she wouldn't have run.)

A shake of his partner's head, her confusion still evident, spurred round two. "One kiss is a beginning." (Or an ending.) "Two kisses…"

Two kisses meant more, she'd said so. Thus when he kissed her again with all the passion and tenderness of the first there could be no doubt he was making an offer she couldn't refuse. Yet when he pulled back a second time she looked more explosive than ever.

"You said there was a gift for me."

Perhaps she'd gone literal, expecting a box with wrapping paper. Booth was all about the metaphor (and making her live her own words). His triumph gleamed out in the craftiest of ways as he sprang the trap. "_You_ said couples who kiss more than once under the mistletoe will be getting married."

Before her words emerged there was a strange little pitch of astonishment that stopped her, briefly. Then, all the shocked little gasps from their rapt audience had the effect of a chill wind blowing over her. Her eyes frosting over, Brennan clipped out a rather obvious statement that refuted his reminder of her previous assertion. "We aren't in England."

"Fine. But I reserve the right to ask you to marry me in the future and you, naturally, reserve the right to turn me down."

"What are you doing? This isn't funny," she hissed.

"I'm not trying to be funny," he countered, now more than a little confused by her reaction. That only made her stiffen up even more and her eyes … Booth could see turmoil roiling in them, warning signs that he'd better play this very carefully. "I'm trying to give you your gift."

As she started to truly sense their ring of enraptured onlookers, he could see his partner building up an icy wall to go with that frigid mask she often wore when under stress. "Public humiliation?"

"No!" Where did that come from…? "God, Bones, will you just— Wait!"

She was leaving the platform, striding off with the contradictory gait of someone who couldn't wait to get away but didn't want anyone to realize she was running for cover. So he had to catch her by the arm and swing her back around, pull her back against him and the only thing he could think was to wrap his arms around her and go for broke.

"I'm trying to tell you that I love you."

She froze.

There was another collective round of gasps.

"I'm giving you _me_, okay? If you want me. That's … In front of all these witnesses, I'm giving myself to you."

It was the most inarticulate declaration he'd ever made, off the cuff and desperate, but it stalled her just enough that he risked loosening his hold on her so he could gauge her reaction. Surely even she would recognize that's basically what marriage is: a public giving of oneself to another. (But only if it was mutual.)

And was it…?

Could it ever be mutual?

So many emotions tumbling behind those eyes, signs of a genius mind at work. Would she see obstacles between them, or recognize (as he hoped) that with this declaration he was sweeping them all away. She had a tendency to see things he couldn't, to complicate things in ways he couldn't even imagine, so it might not work out the way he wanted but he was absolutely willing to try if she was.

"I didn't know you loved me, too. If I'd have known I'd have come after you a long time ago."

As waves of relief and confusion washed through her he could see her working out meanings and wondering how he could know as fact something that had her so uncertain. "It's love?"

As if this were an oral examination requiring her to identify key terms and use them in a sentence.

"You like spending time with me, you love my unscientific ways even though you don't understand me half the time." Her brows rippled with consternation. Undaunted, he pressed on. "When you see me, it feels like the sun is rising inside you. Sometimes you think of me and that's all it takes to make you smile. You want me to be happy, you want to see me smile so you do and say things that you hope will amuse me. You worry. You're scared. The thought of losing me makes you feel almost sick inside and you don't quite know what it means but that fear drives you to look out for me. To make sure nothing bad happens to me. Every day. You do little things to make things easier for me and don't care if I don't notice. … Does that sound about right?"

Astonished by his accuracy, she nodded.

"Then yes. It's love."

"I love you." Testing it out, she nodded slowly again as the explanation satisfied her. "I do."

The rest of their audience broke into sighs and clustered groups of discussion now that the battle had ended. They were alone now, relatively.

Considering the nature of what she'd just admitted and unable to resist, he drew her close once more and brushed a teasing kiss against her ear. "So…. When are we getting married?"

"Never."

Booth laughed. It was precisely what he'd expected. After all, one battle does not win a war.

~Q~

She turned away from the spectacle, wiping a tear and yet beaming. "Thank you. I love my gift."

"I was a little worried it wouldn't work out," Hodgins admitted.

"Oh, it did. I don't know how you did it but you just made two deserving people very happy."

"Three," he corrected tenderly. "You're happy, too."

"I am," Angela sighed.

* * *

><p>~Q~<p>

_** The End**_

~Q~

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> So what do you get the artist whose boyfriend is a billionaire...? The one thing she wants that money can't buy. Naturally. ;)

Dear Spitfire,  
>After making you cry through chapter two the least I could do was make sure you laughed all the more in chapter four.<br>May the rest of your 2015 be filled with love and laughter. :)

Your Secret Santa,  
>Chem<p>

To all you lovely readers, thank you for the follows, favorites, and for the reviews! You are wonderful. :D


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